by David Cross
The twenty of them looked at me with the same curiosity that a Mexican ranch hand has when tending to the cattle, and he comes across a great big steaming pile of bullshit. They looked silently at each other and then back to me. After a tense couple of seconds the leader started to slowly but very deliberately clap his hands. One by one the others joined in and, picking up the tempo, parted themselves so that I may pass through. It was such a touching gesture filled with hope that it is seared into my memory, and I will certainly never forget it. I walked through with a newfound sense of humility and humanity. I walked for another couple of feet when I slowly stopped and turned around to express my gratitude. However, much to my surprise, they had all vanished. As I looked about for them, I could have sworn I heard a tiny child’s voice whisper to me: “You truly are the baddest mofo in all of the Netherlands. Go, and spread your word. But do it in book form. And not as fiction, either. Good luck, James Frey.” And so that night I set down this tale on paper…
Chapter 2:
…Except the papers were confiscated at the border because it was determined that I was a security risk due to the fact that my vomit pants had blood on them. I had meant to wash either the vomit or the blood off the pants but had forgotten after I had gotten “high” by hyperventilating and spinning around as fast as I could after eating some heroin cake I had bought from an African. So I had to set about trying to piece the pieces of the story together. Honestly, there must have been at least a million pieces if not maybe a half dozen or so. I can’t remember too well. I was so “high” on the fresh blood of the Burmese child that I drank in a “highish” haze that it’s tough to get all the “facts” “straight.” I’ll do my best, though. That’s all anyone can or should ask of me. Forever. Just to do my best.
Let’s see, what happened? I talked about the one punky guy with the leather jacket throwing his cup of iced coffee at me and my face falling off and down on the dirty Amsterdam ground, right? (My face is deathly allergic to certain iced coffees getting on it—it stings!) I talked about how they jumped me and made me take out my appendix without any anesthesia. Man, what a mess I was. I desperately needed to get some help or I was gonna die. I wasn’t about to spend my last days of life rotting in some prison in Ohio with a bunkmate named “Lefty” (serving six consecutive life sentences for raping and killing all of his cell mates. He was originally brought in on a misdemeanor for spray painting) and a ten-pound pet rat that I nicknamed “Aeolis” after the Greek God of the winds. No way, man.
I decided that rather than get help, I would break out of the prison that night or die trying. Much later in life I would decide to get rich or die tryin’, but that’s another (this) story. I set about looking for my way out of this hell that was the Ohio Maximum State Prison, officially * recognized as the most brutal prison in the world. I called over the guard who had stabbed me in the chin when I tried to beat him up for calling me a pussy the night before. He sauntered over and spit on me. I told him that he just made a grave mistake. I told him how one day I would write a book and mention all the wrongs I had been wronged, and everyone who ever crossed me would end up getting their shit called on in book form. Who knows? Maybe I would wind up going on the TV talk show circuit and telling the truth about the brutality that goes on in American prisons. I’m sure Montel Williams or maybe even Dr. Phil would be interested in my story. After that, he killed me.
More to Come Later.
Sincerely,
James Frey
A few years ago, after the release of my second humorous CD, It’s Not Funny, SubPop, the record label that put it out, sent me a request from the San Francisco Weekly to write something for them. “Sure, why not?” I said. “What do they want me to write about? My tour? The making of the CD? My take on the upcoming elections? This whole Arrested Development hoo-haa?” Well, no. None of that, as it turned out. The letter below is a great example of the predictable circuitousness of our particular form of propped-up, torn-down, disposable idea, and handling, of “fame.” Anywhoozles, here’s the request with my response.
Original Message
From: Garrett Kamps
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 9:10 A.M.
To:
Subject: David Cross: Building My Backlash
Hey,
So here’s what I think David should write: A piece about the on-the-horizon backlash against him. Last year there wasn’t a hipster in the house who didn’t want to give Cross a BJ for “telling it like it is.” Now it seems those same hipsters are starting to tire of his sardonic ‘tude. It strikes me that he’s just about to cross over that line from hipster hero to resident asshole/punching bag (the TV show, “Eternal Sunshine . . .”, and the Rolling Stone/Spin stuff don’t help). According to the Self-Loathing Hipster’s Guide to the Universe, David has two choices now: Go underground, provoke a string of rumors re: drugs, abortions, sweat shops; or embrace the backlash against him. I propose he do the latter in the form of a guest column in these pages. We could even get Eggers—no stranger to the backlash phenom—involved. Thoughts?
g.
Hi. The above e-mail was sent to one of the guys in the SubPop publicity department to inquire about… well, you just read it, so you know what it’s about. Apparently there will be some inevitable backlash against me, in part, because of the cumulative effects of the various projects I am working on. I suppose if I took on just a couple of these projects (“jobs” I like to call them, in my Protestant work ethic way) that might lessen some of the ill feelings that are slowly but surely working their way toward me and my sarcastic ’tude, but seven or eight of them in the same calendar year!? Forget it! That’s got “Go away! I don’t want to see your smirking face or hear your blah blah blahs for like two years, at least!” written all over it.
Here’s my theory: Backlash and Backlash 2 are “inevitable” because people feel like there is a somewhat vague sense of hypocrisy to what is now my life. I’ve spent years making fun of people and things both serious and light and have received growing attention because of that. Thus, I am now reaping the benefits associated—i.e., making money, getting on the guest lists of shows I want to go to, and fucking beautiful women that are WAY out of my league (and by that I mean my girlfriend, who is beautiful and WAY out of my league). That’s part 1a. Part 1b is that the more work that I do that isn’t Mr. Show or Arrested Development adds up to a whole bunch of stuff that, simply put, isn’t Mr. Show or Arrested Development. Those shows were cancelled. They were great, and I’m happy to have been a part of HBO’s pre-golden years as well as FOX’s trash bin, but that’s all over.
Now I earn my living by being a sarcastic crank, or “asshole,” which is just one of my many onstage personas (I’m working on a new one where I amuse folks through gentle self-deprecating joshing, à la Garrison Keiller). I certainly understand why people would grow weary of my ’tude. I’ve felt the same way about others in my position. And I react with the same eye-rolling, “Yeah, yeah, whatever. You don’t like the president and you don’t like Hollywood douchebags, I GET it. Say, though, how was that bump that you did backstage at the White Stripes show in L.A.? I hope it didn’t delay your guest VJ spot on MTV2… jagoff” to others in my position. And this kind of thing compounds the problem. It seems that my career is entering the “Shut up already” phase. Those who were with me in the beginning before I showed my true colors as I willingly and exuberantly lapped at the feet of my indie heroes while preparing to play a game of televised poker with strangers are currently loading their blogs, ready to trash and deny. This means that I will now be left with just the people who recognize me from Men in Black or Just Shoot Me to look to for succor. I will while away the hours answering questions about what Will Smith is really like and whether Laura San Giacomo’s breasts are really as big as they seem. Hmmm, actually that doesn’t sound like much fun.
Okay then. With that in mind, I will turn to the aforementioned Self-Loathing Hipster’s Guide to the Universe (published by Knopf) a
nd plan the rest of my life accordingly. I can go underground (a real place; it is a cavernous lead-lined bunker in the Yucca Mountains in Nevada) with, amongst others, the guy from the Manic Preachers and Debra Winger. There I can bide my time and write occasional op-ed pieces for fanzines and websites under a fake name suggesting that David Cross is running guns in Columbia or hooked on opium in Karachi. All the while I will be scouring the Internet to see if sufficient time has passed to quell the backlash. Then and only then will I resurface in Iceland, years later, where I “had been the entire time.” I will have a full beard, large pot belly, and a moderately successful eco-friendly bookbinding business that I will have run with my Icelandic wife, Gjo. I will make a brief appearance in the upper left corner box on The New Hollywood Squares, where I will renounce my American citizenship and show my new tattoo, then it’s back to the bunker where… man, fuck that. I’m going to embrace my backlash… make it my own… cherish it and hold it aloft to the heavens like a newborn African babe. Yes. Bring it, I say. Let it inform me and shape me. Let the backlash give me new insight into the human spirit. Let it take me to greater heights and lower lows! Let it lift me onto a precipice from which I can see all! Let it change my outfits! May it swell to numbers too great to print in a family publication! If it means I get to work more, I’m all for it. See you backstage, fuckers!
Love,
David Cross
Okay, this is another thing that I wrote before I started writing this book that I wanted to include. I doubt too many people saw it when it first got posted. Do you know what pitchfork.com is? It’s a website that basically reviews music but in a very, very precious and often overly verbose way. They clearly love what they do, but sometimes it can be a little… oh, sorry. I didn’t realize you said you are already familiar with pitchfork.com. Sorry about that. I need to clean out the ol’ ears, I guess. Anyway, here it is. And keep in mind that these are all real quotes from their reviews. I didn’t make anything up or embellish at all.
Top Ten CDs to Listen to while Listening to Other CDs
HI, I WAS SOMEWHAT SURPRISED THAT PITCHFORK.COM WOULD ask me to participate in this. Here’s why:
The devastating paradox of David Cross’ pre-recorded comedy: Is it funny that everything Cross says is nauseatingly smug, yelped out in smarmy, supercilious prose? Or is David Cross just a giant fucking asshole?
That Cross is such an immensely unlikable live performer—condescending, defensive, arrogant, patronizing—is both his greatest asset and his most crippling flaw.
And while the above review of my second CD, It’s Not Funny, is certainly more thoughtful than “David Cross? Yeah, he’s funny” or “He sucks,” it’s still a bit shitty. “Immensely unlikable”? The paradox is “devastating”? How is it devastating?
And that’s just one reviewer, Amanda Petrusich. * There’s another one, William Bowers, who claims to:
…having developed a strange, extra-textual concern for David Cross. Likeminded futon-psychoanalysts fret over his fluctuating weight, his fitfulness and despondence….
Fretting over my weight? Oh, well. But regardless of their opinion of me and/or my act, they’ve asked me for my Top Ten List®. So here is my contribution to the Top Ten List® for Pitchfork.com.
Top Ten CDs That I Just Made Up (and Accompanying Made-up Review Excerpts) to Listen to while Skimming through Some of the Over-wrought Reviews on Pitchfork.com
1. While reading over pitchfork.com’s review for the Arcade Fire (here’s a brief excerpt)—
Our self-imposed solitude renders us politically and spiritually inert, but rather than take steps to heal our emotional and existential wounds, we have chosen to revel in them. We consume the affected martyrdom of our purported idols and spit it back in mocking defiance.
—may I suggest listening to Until It Happens/You Let It Happen, by Maximum Minimum. The fourth album (not counting the re-release of the first three 7-inches on HugTown Records) reaffirms the band’s status as the godfathers of the Taos, NM, “crying scene.” Like a gilded phoenix rising from the toxic ashes of the death of mercurial lead guitarist, Peter Chernin, Maximum Minimum snarls back like a taunted tiger on steroids (also on acid). RATING—8.2
2. While reading the Pitchfork review of Daft Punk’s Human after All—
Ideally, the physics of record reviewing are as elegant as actual physics, with each piece speaking to the essence of its subject as deliberately and as appropriately as a real-world force reacting to an action.
—(this is a real, albeit brief, excerpt) may I suggest listening to Elegant Nuisance by “ButterFat 100.” With this, their second album since signing with Holive Records, ButterFat 100 return to their psychobilly/emo core roots. Let its volcanic rapture overwhelm you like a 19th-century hand-woven blanket made of human hair might have done back in the days when they enjoyed such things. RATING—5.5
3. While reading their review of Animal Collective’s Sung Tongs (here’s a brief excerpt)—
“The Softest Voice” layers clear-toned guitar figures upon each other, as Tare and Bear whisper in harmony above, as if singing to the vision peering back at them from the skin of a backwoods creek. The rustic, secretive manner of their voices and the barely disturbed forest around them suggests that whatever ghosts inhabit these woods are only too happy to oblige a lullaby or two. Likewise, the epic “Visiting Friends” gathers in faceless, mutated ghosts (i.e., oddly manipulated vocalizations from the duo) to hover over their dying fire in visage of nothing better than the tops of trees.)
—why not listen to As I Became We by “Tishara Quailfeather.” The virulent and hermetically sealed pinings of the world’s only triple-gold-selling Native American artist living in an iron lung. It’s as if newly dead, and thus still pure angels, reached down into the Virgin Mother’s throat and gently lifted out the sweetest and most plaintive sounds man will ever hope to hear in this life. RATING—7.17
4. While reading the review of Blonde Redhead’s Misery Is a Butterfly (here is but a brief passage)—
The word “lush” doesn’t quite capture the fluttering whirls of strings, keyboards, and delicately plucked guitar that open “Elephant Woman”; I’d go so far as to label such enveloping richness of instrumentation “baroque,” perhaps even “rococo.”
—give a listen to Turndown Service, the forthcoming album by DotCom.com. Hopefully this foray into the electronic sector of the British no-fi/wi-hi scene (with apologies to Dr. Reverend Billy) is only a temporary diversion and not a full-fledged career move for Bix Xhu and friends. With a nod to early Creatures via the Monks, DotCom.com manages to wrench what little empathy one might have for the entire British working class (nothing you wouldn’t find at an “Alive with Pleasure” show) and sashays it right up and down Trafalgar Square. RATING—6.22
5. While reading the review of the Boards of Canada’s Music Has the Right to Children—
The incredibly simple melody of the short “Bocuma” becomes a lump-in-the-throat meditation on man’s place in the universe through subtle pitch shifts and just the right mist of reverb. The slow fade-in on “An Eagle in Your Mind” is the lonesome sound of a gentle wind brushing the surface of Mars moments after the last rocket back to Earth has lifted off.
—why not listen to Only the Proletariat Flosses by Screaming at the Mirror. With a truncated syncopation and approach that rivals only Tosh Guarrez pre-“FartFlap,” S.A.T.M has taken steps to dismantle what was previously only dared mantled by the great Gilda Thrush when she fronted Cycle Clause. It’s as if Genghis Khan got together for breakfast with Oliver Wendell Holmes and Virginia Wolf and ordered just a bowl of homemade granola and then skipped out on the check. RATING—11.–111
6. When you’re enjoying the review of the M.I.A./Diplo album Piracy Funds Terrorism, Vol. 1 (here’s the beginning of that one)—
Santa Claus, the Virgin Mary, and Terrence “Turkeytime” Terrence just got the shaft this holiday season. Why bother with presents? 2005’s Tickle Me Elmo was supposed
to be a chicken-legged Sri Lankan with so much sex in her self-spun neons you might as well get wasted off penicillin with Willie Nelson at a secret Rex the Dog show.
